Community Church Sermons
First Sunday of Advent, Year A – December 2,
2001
"The Art of Staying Awake”
Matthew 24:36-44
(With Chrismon Service)
When will the Kingdom come? When will the long night be over, and the new day dawn? When will hunger be eradicated, racism overcome? When will all children be healthy, and all wrongs righted, and tears wiped away from every eye, and the lion lay down with the lamb, and no one learns war anymore? When will the world be made right?
This is the question Christians ask at Advent.
When will the Kingdom – the world you’ve always wanted to live in and that you want for your children and grandchildren - finally arrive?
Sometimes, it seems hopeless. Like it will never get here.
And that’s how it was for the people who first read the Gospel according to St. Matthew. They were living in a time some thirty or forty years after the Jesus event. At first, they had believed that Jesus would return any minute now, bringing the Kingdom of God, making the world and their lives right once and for all. But forty years is a long time to wait.
And they’d become discouraged. And that’s easy to do.
If you’ve ever stood in the kitchen up at Knox Area Rescue Ministries, scooping out food for the poor bedraggled souls who sleep on the streets at night and come through the line every day, you’ve probably wondered if the day will EVER come when all the homeless will be home, and every hungry belly filled once and for all. It sure seems like a long shot from that position.
If you are a veteran and have experienced the horror of war, along with the unkept political promises that this war is the one to end all wars, you might find yourself wondering if there will EVER come the day of lasting peace. It seems so very doubtful.
If your heart has been broken and you find yourself in one of those dark moments of life, you might be wondering today if there will EVER be light at the end of the tunnel that isn’t the headlight of an oncoming train. And right now, you’re just not sure.
If you’re wrestling with an illness, or with the death of a loved one, or with a broken family relationship, it might well be that the question arises in your heart, “Will my life and my world EVER be right again?”
Oh, sometimes we get discouraged! Sometimes we abandon the dream about the world we’ve always wanted to live in.
So Matthew the gospelwriter speaks to people like us through a story about Jesus and the disciples. Like us, they’ve become skeptics. No way will hunger and poverty ever be wiped out. No way will racism and sexism and all the other evil “isms” ever be completely eradicated. No way will Palestinians and Israelis ever learn to get along with each other. No way will cancer be stamped out, and birth defects prevented. No way will death ever become a thing of the past. We heard too many empty promises, and seen too many evil things. No way will this broken, sin-filled, heart-breaking world be made completely right!
That’s what the disciples are expressing in this story. The very same sentiment that we hold in our hearts. We’ve been waiting for a long, long time, Jesus! And things aren’t getting better! Sometimes it seems like things are getting worse! The Kingdom seems as far away today as when you first told us about it! So tell us now…WHEN – if ever - will it come?
And here is Jesus’ answer to them and to us.
“Any minute now.”
You know, one of the things I love about Jesus’ answer in Matthew 24 is that he subverts the way we humans usually look at things. If you’ve done any flying lately, you know that some airlines now have these little monitors where you can actually watch the progress of your flight across the country. You’re flying from Knoxville to Los Angeles, and you can follow this little airplane graphic as it inches across the screen. It tells you the altitude you’re at. And the airspeed. You can actually see the progress you’re making from here…to there! That’s how we humans measure things, you know. By the progress we’re making toward the goal!
I mean, if you go on a diet because you need to lose thirty pounds, you have to see that first one, two or three pounds come off before you can feel confident that the goal can be reached!
Not so in the Kingdom of heaven. Jesus tells us in the passage that the Kingdom is coming, regardless of whether we can discern it’s progress. And one fine day – when it seems like the Kingdom is so far away that it will probably never come – all of a sudden, IT WILL BE THERE! It will happen in an instant! In the twinkling of an eye! The old will pass away! The new will come! God will be among us!
And despite the fact that there are wars and rumors of wars, ALL OF A SUDDEN PEACE WILL COME! Despite the fact that there is great poverty and hunger in the world ALL OF A SUDDEN JUSTICE WILL COME! Despite the fact that you can’t even remember the faces of those loved ones you’ve lost, and your grief over them is so deep that you feel like they’re lost forever, ALL OF A SUDDEN, SOME CURTAIN WILL PART, AND THEY WILL BE WITH YOU AND YOUR SORROW WILL TURN TO JOY!
That’s when the Kingdom will come. Any minute now.
So Jesus says, “Stay awake!”
And by staying awake, Jesus means something very specific. You see, you stay awake by devoting yourself to living the life of the Kingdom of God. In anticipation of that day when no one will go without food, you go and feed those who today have no food. In anticipation of the day when there will be no more divisions, you go and make unity with others. In anticipation of the day when families will be reunited, you go and befriend people who lose loved ones. In anticipation of the day when justice will flow like a river, you go and work for justice among people.
That’s what it means to stay awake. To live in anticipation of the Kingdom arriving any minute now by working hard to represent the Kingdom on earth.
And even though it seems that every mouth you feed produces ten more who are hungry, and every injustice you correct is followed by a hundred more, and for every step you take forward you take a dozen backward, and it seems like you’re making no progress at all…
…one fine day – in an instant – in the twinkling of an eye – the Kingdom will come!
Any minute now.
And we, like the disciples, ask Jesus how we can be sure of this. And Jesus says, just look for the signs. Stars in the sky. Angels in the heavens. Shepherds in the fields. A song in the air!
And here, in the season of Advent, we celebrate the signs that assure us that the world we’ve always dreamed of – the world we want for our children and our grandchildren – is surely coming!
Today, as we bring forth some of these signs and symbols, hanging them on our Chrismon tree, I hope you will take heart! Any minute now, the Kingdom will come!
So stay awake! Work hard! And look for the signs….of Advent!
The first symbol on our Chrismon tree is the Triangle With Three Circles. The Triangle is one of the most ancient symbols of the Trinity, representing God's power and majesty. The Circles represent eternity, reminding us that God's love and promises are forever. The Book of Genesis tells us that "In the beginning GOD created the heavens and the earth." By this we know that the eternal God is the very Source of our lives. As this Chrismon is brought forward, let us sing "Holy, Holy, Holy".
The next Chrismon depicts an Open Book. It represents the Bible, the faithful and true Word of God. And the Bible points to another Word. The Living Word of God. John writes, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God, and all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." As this Chrismon is brought forward, let us sing a verse of "Jesus Loves Me".
One of the important understandings of our faith is that life is difficult. Because humankind chooses life without God, God's good and perfect will for the world is thwarted. But God, in love, will not give up on us. From of old, God has spoken through prophets and others, promising that light will one day shine in the darkness through the coming of a Savior. Solomon described this Savior as the Rose of Sharon. Isaiah spoke of the desert breaking forth with flowers! The next Chrismon is a beautiful cross-stitched rose, representing the joy that will blossom in sorrow. As the rose is presented, join your voices in singing, "Lo, How A Rose E're Blooming".
God's promise to us is that he himself will be our shepherd. Psalm 100 says it well. Listen:
Make
a joyful noise to the Lord, all the lands!
Serve
the Lord with gladness!
Come
into his presence with singing!
Know
that the Lord is God!
It
is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves.
We
are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Is it any wonder then, that when
the time came for the Savior's advent, among the first to hear the news were
shepherds out in the field? As the Chrismon representing the Shepherd's Crook
is presented, let us sing, "The First Noel."
John 3:16 says that, "God so loved the WORLD, that he gave his only Son.." The symbol of the Star is important because it represents the great truth that God's love is for everyone, everywhere. By a Star, God appealed to wise men living in the East to come and worship the newborn King. As the Star is carried forward, our song is "As With Gladness, Men of Old".
From the time of his birth to the present, women and men have tried to describe the beauty and meaning of who Jesus is. Sometimes, words alone were not enough, and so symbols were created. There is the familiar IHS - iota, eta, sigma in Greek. These three letters are the first letters in the Greek word for Jesus. There is the common Alpha and Omega - meaning the beginning and the end. Another symbol is the ICTHUS - a fish-shape containing the first letters in Greek of the phrase, Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior. In our faith tradition, there are many symbols representing Jesus. All of them remind us that the love of God expressed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is too high and wonderful to ever be captured in words alone. God's love can only be experienced. As several symbols representing these descriptions of Jesus are brought forward, let us join in wondering about Christ's meaning in our own lives as we sing, "What Child Is This?"
When we think of Jesus, we think not only of his birth, but of his life, death and resurrection. As several Chrismons depicting various kinds of crosses are presented, let us sing, "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord". And let us gather around the table for Communion.
The Scriptures tells us that, by
life, death and resurrection, Jesus has become our King of kings, and Lord of
lords. We are promised that he will reign for ever and ever and ever. So even
today, many years removed from the events themselves, we know that we are a
part of what God has done and is doing to bring new life and freedom. We place
the Crown on the very top of the tree to help us look up, for our salvation
draws nigh! And let us sing, "Crown Him With Many Crowns!"
The last symbol placed upon this year's Chrismon tree is the Fish. It reminds us of how Jesus multiplied the fishes and loaves. It also causes us to remember that followers of Jesus in every generation have to make choices about following him. In the early days of our faith, when Christians were hunted down and killed by Roman authorities, the people developed a code by which they could tell who was a believer and who was not. One person drew an oblong arc, and then invited the other to complete the code. Those who did not understand the meaning of the Fish could not complete it, and gave away their identity as agents of the State. Those who were fellow followers of Jesus, knew that the drawn oblong arc only needed to be mirrored on the bottom, forming the Christian Fish. This symbol today is the symbol of our church as part of the International Council of Community Churches. Together, we seek to complete the circle with others so that the power of Jesus' love may be known to the world. As we place the Fish symbol on the Chrismon tree, let us look forward to the day, and vow to work for the day when Jesus returns, and all God's family is brought together in love! This Advent hope is expressed in the song, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel".